It’s embarrassing to be at the mall with my mother, especially on a Saturday. That’s the day kids go with their friends. You get teased if you’re seen with your mother. It’s like you don’t have any friends to go with. Which makes it worse because right now I’m scared that I don’t have any friends. Maybe Nessa and Erica and Lindsey don’t really like me. They just put up with me when I’m with Skylar. Without her, I’m a nothing.

I don’t know how to explain this to Mom. It’s not like I hate her the way some girls hate their mothers. It’s just the way it is. You don’t go to the mall or the movies or the pool with your mother unless you’re under eleven.

We enter the mall through Macy’s. “Let’s start here,” Mom says.

Even though I’m sure I won’t find anything I like, I go along with her suggestion. My friends don’t shop here.

She stops at the jewelry counter to look at earrings. “All the ones I like best are for pierced ears,” she says.

“You could get your ears pierced,” I say, but she’s moving on to the shoe department. She picks up a sandal here and a running shoe there. She fingers lipsticks at a cosmetics counter and lingers in the purse department.

“We came here to find something for me,” I remind her. “Teen clothes are on the other side of the store.”

In the teen department, Mom begins searching through racks of hideous clothes. She holds up a dress. “Oh, look, Abbi, this is adorable.”

I shake my head. “Please, Mom, just let me wear jeans and my new blue T-shirt,” I beg. To be honest, I don’t want to buy something to wear at Ms. Sullivan’s memorial. I’ll never see it without remembering why I own it.

“Let’s try another store.” Before I can stop her, Mom walks out of Macy’s and heads straight for the Gap. She might as well be Skylar, the way she bosses me around.

I walk several steps behind Mom and pause at the entrance to the Gap to take a quick look at the shoppers inside. No one I know is there. Ignoring the blouse Mom’s waving like a flag, I find a rack of skirts and paw through them. I see a skirt with small white flowers on a black background that looks okay and grab one in my size. I snatch a black T-shirt too and show them to Mom.

“Perfect,” she says. “Did you try them on?”

“Yes,” I lie, and lead her toward the cashiers.